11 Great Tools for Writing Fast

When you stall out, try these techniques . . .

There are a few different reasons why we hit writer’s block. Lack of knowing what to write about, or where to start, is one. Not knowing how to put your concept into words properly is another. The third big one is psyching yourself out.

These 11 techniques will address all three of these causes. Read on for some solid advice to taking the bull of blockage by the horns.

1. Prompts

They’re ubiquitous for a reason. They give direction when you need just a little push. Not having any direction is as much of a curse as it is a blessing. When the sky is the limit, where do you start?

Start anywhere. There are sites which offer free writing prompts, such as ThinkWritten’s 365 Creative Writing Prompts or Written Word Media’s 500 Prompts to Beat Writer’s Block.

You can also visit prompt generators, such as The Story Shack or Self Publishing.com, which caters to both fiction and non-fiction.

2. Books

Any book — fiction or non-fiction — can be used as an idea generator. Simply open it up to a random page and scan the first line you see. Use a word as your seed.

Alternatively, open it to its table of contents and choose a chapter to use as a jumping off point.

Of course, if you’re a reader (and you are, right? It helps so much with writing), then you can choose a fully formed idea which you encountered in a book.

3. Pictures and art

I’ve seen some great pieces start as a reaction to a picture or a work of art. Visual arts relate to our mind in a different way than verbal descriptions. Many of them tell a story, or evoke emotions.

Luckily for writers, they also often circumvent our blocked minds and let us react to the images on an intuitive level.

Keeping books of pictures — or visiting the library and choosing some that speak to you — is a great way to jumpstart your writing. Some are grouped by artist, others have a common theme. I just got a book of biomechanical art that has sparked several ideas.

Alternatively, scan sites that deal in pictures. Medium’s Unsplash is one, and mix.com features videos and stills with striking images.

Magazines are another source of art, both with their advertisements and their article illustrations. You could get a ton of story ideas from National Geographic, for example, or even from magazines of a specialized niche, like Doctor Who Magazine.

If you’re lucky enough to have a Half Price Books, Records, and Magazines in your community, you can sometimes buy magazines cheaply by the bundle, or at least, half off. Your neighborhood second hand shop may also carry magazines for cheap.

4. Music

I personally can’t write without music. I use lyrics when my hands come to a pause to gently float me in another direction, if I need a little push.

But whether you like music with or without lyrics, the emotional tone conveyed by music is something that can help you break through writer’s block, and write quickly.

Choose music with a faster beat to keep the ideas rolling, or with strong, sweeping movement to bowl through any points where you’d want to stop. Mars, from Holst’s The Planets, anyone?

5. Other media

Games, movies, television, comics, and radio/podcasts can all act as a source of inspiration. If you find a source that really talks to you, run with it!

You may be inspired by a specific character. Lift the actor and make him or her play your own roles. You may get a glimpse of another story that’s set in the same universe as the piece of media you’re tuning into. It doesn’t have to be fanfic: you can lift the elements that work best for you, and ditch the rest.

Don’t forget commercials! Commercials often define a problem before describing the solution they have to sell. These underlying problems can be mined for their social significance, and you can be inspired to write something having nothing to do with what the commercial is selling.

6. Make a list or two

Lists are great. You can mix and match from any lists you keep to create a whole new concept. If you need inspiration for what kinds of lists to write, I recommend Jill Badonsky’s 9 Modern Day Muses (and a Bodyguard). She’s very playful in her approach to creativity, and has many starter lists besides.

You can also generate your own lists. For example, quickly write a page about a dream you’ve recently had. Then go back and pluck out the most intriguing words. This becomes your word bank, and you can write including these words in your piece. This speeds your writing by giving you check-in points along the way.

7. Try dictating

For when you know what you want to say, but are having trouble finding the words, try dictating. Often our hands don’t write or type as fast as our mind thinks. Luckily, most of us can speak more quickly than we write.

You can get out of your own way by using this technique.

Don’t overthink things, just speak and develop your thoughts.

I know a guy who dictates while he drives. I don’t have that level of single-mindedness, but I certainly appreciate how much he gets done in a day.

8. Don’t stop

Something else you can try to loosen up the word flow is to not allow yourself to stop writing within a certain timeframe. It can be a little exhausting, so keep it short the first few times you try this, but common amounts of time for this exercise are 2 minutes, 5 minutes, or 15 minutes. You can go longer once you’ve done it a few times.

So the details of this process are that if you are writing longhand, you never let yourself take your hand away from the page. If you are typing, you never left your hands pause. Either way, to keep the flow going, you can write gibberish while the next idea forms. So your writing might look something like this:

I do not approve of such things. Strawberries strawberries strawberries I think perhaps I’ll take a break Now on the other hand . . .

Here, the italicized words are the filler, mind-wandering words that get us to the next coherent thought.

9. Mindfulness

If your problem is psyching yourself out, you can try mindfulness exercises to ground your attention in the here and now. As you become aware of your body, you begin to let the stranglehold which your emotions or confusion have on you fade.

Breathing exercises are a good one to try. Count your breaths, or breathe deep and control the release of your breath.

Another helpful exercise is to do a body scan. Close your eyes and start with flexing and unflexing your toes, then move to the ankles, then the calves, then the thighs, then the abdomen, then the chest, then the shoulders, then the neck, then your mouth, then around your eyes, then the top of your head. This systematic focus on specific parts of your body will help release tension, both physically and mentally.

10. Affirmations

Whether or not you believe they work in changing your life, they do have one affect: they start you writing. Physically, as you write them out, you unlock the part of your brain that says you can come up with ideas. You CAN write because you ARE writing.

To design an affirmation, come up with something positive and actionable.

“I love writing and I am good at what I do.”

“I am happy when I write.”

“My writing is getting better and better the more I practice.”

“I come up with ideas easily.”

At the worst, it’s got you writing something, and that will take off into original writing shortly. At the best, you begin to internalize the message and your writing improves. What’s to lose?

11. Reward yourself

If you don’t know where to start, or that you’ll start at all, work backwards. What will writing this piece do for you today? Maybe you’ll have a story to post or share, or you’ll be further along in your book. Whatever it is, spend a few moments contemplating the good that will come out of writing today.

Then, do it. No excuses. You don’t have to do it for long, but start at least and see where it takes you.

You can add additional, non-intrinsic treats to your reward, if you like. A fresh pot of coffee, a quick shower, an episode of your favorite show. Whatever floats your boat.

Whatever your barrier to speedy writing, one of these solutions will help you break through. Try any of these for relief from writer’s block:

1. Prompts
2. Books
3. Pictures and art
4. Music
5. Other media
6. Make a list or two
7. Try dictating
8. Don’t stop
9. Mindfulness
10. Affirmations
11. Reward Yourself

If you enjoyed this article, you might also like:

A 12-Step Process for Writers, or How I Wrote a Book in Only One Month | by Ilana Lydia | Aug, 2021 | Medium